Frantic Dreams: A Different Delta
by The Mystic Frost
Summary: Okay, so I fucked up here. Remastered. Revised. Rewritten. Refluffed. Ruby and Sapphire must deal with the rise of team magma and aqua again. A new antagonist makes their way to stage Hoenn, right around time of the discovery of mega evolution. More to come! 10% extra fluff. 80% more plot. 100% more planned. 0% admitting of feels.


**A/N: Hey, long time no see. I'll keep things brief.**

**Many things have changed, my love for pokemon has not. I live vicariously through Franticshipping.**

**I tried to salvage the old story, but I only ended up digging a bigger hole with each update. I've got a solid plot now, something I lacked at the start. Personally, it's my biggest flaw in writing (I myself think so).**

**So here you go. Frantic Dreams redux, A Different Delta**

**Disclaimer: I'd whore myself out for pokemon, I would.**

* * *

**Chapter 1:A different Delta**

Sapphire swung across the vines as Ruby ran alongside Nana and Dono, making a mad dash through the forest. The four of them were in hot pursuit of a man in a blue suit. Coincidence or not, that man had just stolen a pokemon from its trainer.

Nana stopped for a moment, sniffing around the damp forest floor. "C'mon Nana, use odor sleuth!" She sniffed around, pacing around.

Sapphire swung onto a branch, standing and scanning the forest floor like a noctowl. "He couldn't have gone far! I thought those magma grunts disbanded years ago!"

Nana ran off, barking as she ran deeper into the forest. Ruby, Sapphire, and Dono followed behind, some running, some swinging off vine. Nana ran faster than the others could keep up, prompting Dono to use rollout to keep pace.

"Dammit, hold up you guys!" Sapphire shouted as she flew through the air, connecting with another branch. The two gave chase as fast as they could.

The trees began to thin out. More and more light filtered through the leaves, reaching the grassy floor in a cascade of greens. Up ahead, the trees stopped, forming a natural clearing. Sapphire hurled herself off the last vine, weaving between the last few branches. She launched through the air, landing on all fours. Ruby was no more than a second behind.

"You!" Sapphire commanded. "Give us back that pokemon!"

The grunt turned, obviously startled. In his hands was a standard pokeball, save for a black net design spanning its entire body. To his side, a startled loudred trembled. It shook in place, petrified from being kidnapped and the center of attention. It cried out, forcing everyone around to cover their ears.

"Gah! Useless pokemon!" The magma grunt reached out the hand that held the modified pokeball, calling back the loudred. "Useless, all of you are useless!" He reached behind his back and took out another modified pokeball. "Perhaps one of yours would like to join." The magma grunt chuckled, growing into a full blown maniacal craze as he threw it out at Nana.

"Detect!" Ruby challenged right back. Fortunately, Nana was able to avoid the capture beam as it fell to the floor and rolled beside his feet.

"Enough! Face us like a man!" Sapphire growled out.

"Fine. If it's a battle you want," he reached behind for a normal pokeball, calling out a numel. "Then it's a battle you'll get!"

Dono was already mid-charge as the numel was summoned. His massive body leapt into the air, meeting his opponent with a wicked double edge, knocking it out immediately. By the time the magma grunt finished his brief tirade, his pokemon was already defeated. He stood there with his jaw on the floor.

"I- Wha- How could you?" he stuttered out.

"Give it up." Ruby stated rather calmly. "You've lost, and you have no way out. Turn yourself in."

The magma grunt pieced his jaw back together with haste. "Fine, you win. But you'll never take me." His hand swept by his belt, knocking down a black pellet and a hidden pokeball.

The clearing was engulfed in a dark smoke. Everyone present started to cough. The sound of a pokeball clicking went unnoticed. "Dono!" Sapphire coughed out. "Use rapid spin!"

The ground rumbled and the smoke began to clear. Eventually it was all swept away, revealing the four of them, minus one grunt, add one loudred.

"Dammit, he got away…" Sapphire muttered, shoulders sinking.

"Not exactly." Ruby pointed up into the sky ahead of them. "You can still faintly see the smoke trail of where he flew off to. Nana, try another odor sleuth."

Sapphire looked up and sighed, knowing that the grunt was already long gone. The smoke trail grew more and more faded with each second. Her guess, a swallow. Nothing in their arsenal was that fast. Instead, she went to calm down the recently kidnapped, now freed pokemon.

Nana huffed, clearing a bit of smoke from its snout. She whimpered, signaling that any hope of catching his scent was gone. Ruby sighed. "Nothing can be done about it. Don't worry Nana, you've done a great job already." Instead, he picked up the pokeball for inspection. It was a lot heavier than it looked. "I hope the professor can make sense of this…"

* * *

Steven held up a small drawstring bag and set it on the table. The professor leaned over as the string was pulled, spilling countless marble like rocks across his desk. Each one sparkled with a dazzling sheen, spreading a cascade of vivid colors across the desk. There were blues, greens, reds, grays, even some yellow.

"Each one I've collected in about the same shape. Most have remnants of a rocky shell that, given a little effort, can be removed. Each one is a perfect sphere of relatively the same size. One primary color, and a swirl consisting of two complementing colors." He reached out to pick one up. "Take this one for example. A brown exterior, with a red and black swirl." He turned it over in his hand, as if looking at it for the hundredth time will give him some insight. "Unfortunately that's where my analysis ends."

Professor Birch held one under the lamp for closer inspection, leaning closer. "And you said these all came from small meteorites?"

Steven nodded in affirmation. "The space center has been up to their ears in meteorite landings. I've been trying to collect them for sampling, but I simply cannot find many of them. They've stopped all launches until either the anomaly passes, or they can guarantee the rockets safety. Obviously both are nigh impossible at the present."

"Amazing, these are just like the one I have." The professor chuckled as he turned around, moving to another desk and opening one of its many drawers.

Steven was taken aback. "wait, you don't mean…?"

"Yep!" Professor Birch exclaimed happily. "Left a nasty dent in my roof last week. 'Cept this one's rather small in comparison, and, well… you'll see."

He handed Steven a small metal container. The inside was plush, with a small stone sat in the center. The inside looked like the double helix of DNA, with a literal rainbow around it.

Steven stared with curiosity. "I've found half a dozen of those over the week." He rubbed at his face, as if the action of doing so would wipe away the confusion and bring clarity to the situation. "I feel like they're connected. To what, I have no idea."

Professor Birch began to sort out the rocks. "I've ordered a new piece of tech the day you brought these in. With what I have, I can deduce that there's a connection between the smaller stones, and any of the larger ones. It's some form of energy, low frequency waves, like radio waves. However, the smaller stone, which I've called a key stone, can only bond with one of the other stones at a time. It's not until I take whichever bonded stone outside the lab, and to the other side of town does it finally rebond with another, closer stone."

Steven paused, taking in all of what he just heard. "When does it arrive?"

"Not for another week."

* * *

"Whispers!" shouted a young school goer. The loudred, in contrast to its name, made quite the uproar as it ran towards its trainer. The two jumped into each other's arms. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

"No problem, It's what we do." Sapphire said, turning and waving goodbye.

Ruby followed with a puzzled look plastered all over his face. "What's got you in a bind?"

"Weeellll," Sapphire chanted happily, "What city are we in?" she cocked her head to the side and stared at Ruby, waiting for him to answer.

"Petalburg, why?" he folded his arms questioningly.

"What's there to do in Petalburg?"

Ruby put his hand out. "There's no contest hall, nothing." He spoke as if the facts were plain as day.

"I'm gonna kick yer dad's ass." She refuted immediately, holding a fist out and shaking it. "He's gonna wish he was never born!"

Ruby's shoulders sank. "But then I wouldn't be here, Sapph. Saaaaapph, I don't wanna!"

She grabbed Ruby by his shirt, tugging him forward hastily. "I don't care, we're fighting him!"

"Correction, you're fighting him." He made no effort to walk on his own. No way was he going to battle.

The doors to the normal type gym flew open. Sapphire stood proudly in the center, hands on her hips and head thrust high. "Norman! My name is Sapphire Birch and I'm here to kick yer teeth in!"

Ruby, standing off to the side, waved at the officiator. "'Sup?"

The officiator was dumbstruck. "Uh, um, actually miss, you have to get there first, you can't just walk in and-"

From somewhere in the back of the gym came, "Sapphire? Is that you?"

"Yeah!" she shouted with gusto. "I'm here to destroy this place!"

"I'll be there in a moment!"

Ruby looked over at the officiator, who was more confused than a spinda. "You must be new here." He said flatly. "Sapphire here could take on this whole gym single handedly, with one pokemon, who also isn't using their hands. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous. Humor me, if you will."

Norman appeared through one of the doors. "Here so soon? Is it Friday already?" he said in mock humor.

"We were in the area, thought I'd stop by, keep ya company." Sapphire feigned innocence, tilting her head and smiling.

Norman laughed, walking towards the center wall, opposite of the challenger. He stopped once centered, hitting a hidden panel. "Let's get this started, shall we?" The floor began to crack, sending a small amount of dust into the air. Over time, the floor separated down the middle. It made way for a battlefield underneath, a rather plain dirt field.

"We'll go head to head, one pokemon each. The gym doesn't close for another three hours, and I'd like to be prepared just in case." Norman laid out the rules, grabbing for one of his pokeballs.

"Fine with me, I'll still destroy ya!" Sapphire shouted, jumping down onto the battlefield.

"Right. Go, Vigoroth!" Norman threw out his pokeball, calling forth one of his many vigoroths.

"Alright, time for your gym debut! Go, Kiruru!" Sapphire threw out a pokeball in return, a kirlia. Kiruru stood at the ready, one foot behind the other, both arms up and ready.

Norman wasn't going to waste any time. "Vigoroth, Slash!" And just like that, the battle had started.

Norman's vigoroth propelled itself forward with surprising speed. "Counter with psyshock!"

Kiruru focused its power, launching rocks scattered across the battlefield at the vigoroth. However, it wasn't enough to stop the energetic pokemon as it slashed through the vast majority of projectiles launched at it, closing the gap between them.

"Teleport!" Kiruru disappeared the moment the attack would have connected. Vigoroth slashed, cutting through nothing but air. It looked around confused. "Now! Psychic!"

Vigoroth was sent flying back across the battlefield, skidding to a halt in front of Norman. With pained effort, it managed to get back up. "Hm, impressive. Should've known you would teleport."

Sapphire grinned, barring her wild fangs. "Ya know it! We've trained super hard to pull that one off." She patted the head of Kiruru with pleasure.

"Quite the combo, I must say." Norman smirked. "But we've also been training." He threw his arm out, pointing forward. "Vigoroth, Pattern C! Agility!"

Norman's vigoroth dashed madly across the designated battle arena. A small amount of dust was left in the wake of its mad dash.

Norman folded his arms, having done all he needed to do. "Just you try and counter this. Vigoroth, begin!"

Sapphire grit her teeth. With every passing second it grew harder to detect the opponent. As if her eyes started playing tricks on her, the vigoroth started to multiply. In the shortest of moment, Kiruru was surrounded by countless fakes.

Kiruru jolted forward, a gash appearing on its side. It happened again, this time sending it to one side. Sapphire gasped. "Kiruru, get out of there!" It tried in vain to teleport away, only to have the circle reform around it. It staggered with each strike before finally falling to its knees.

"Fine, if this is how yer gonna fight, we're just gonna have to end it!" Sapphire shouted. "Take this! Psychic explosion!"

Kiruru's horns gleamed with a vibrant red hue. Small rocks and stones levitated upward all around it, forming a defensive ring. With one final push, each rock turned into a projectile, hurling outwards.

Like dominoes, the vigoroth fell, leaving only one remaining. It lay unconscious, the epitome of being knocked out.

"YEAH!" Sapphire jumped around with pride in her pokemon. "Ya did it! That was awesome!"

Norman recalled his pokemon with a begrudging smile on his face. Losing to her was always bittersweet. "As if there was ever any doubt. Congratulations Sapphire."

Sapphire was too preoccupied celebrating with her pokemon to notice.

The judge stood there slack jawed with buckled knees.

Ruby was covered in dirt.

All in all, another successful Friday, on a Tuesday.

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**A/N: Guess who's back. Back again. TMF's back, for the feels.**

**Kept it short. You guys deserve an update, truly, you do. I apologize for going AWOL like that, if it's any condolence, the next chapter is already in the making.**

**Every time I write some frantically fluffy moment, I always wonder. What if Ruby did just kiss her, hm? Hot stuff.**

**Again, short chapter. This should lay the foundation for what you can expect from now on. Actual story. Actual plot. Genuine grade A trash, hipster variety. Imma fuck up dem feels, bruh.**

**Thank you to everyone who is still with me. I cannot express enough thanks. To each and every one of you, stay frosty!~**


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